The present disclosure relates to seal assemblies. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to the cooling of seal seats in a seal assembly for a gas turbine engine.
Existing seal seat designs utilized within bearing compartments sometimes include a seal seat with a series of machined holes for transporting a fluid for aiding in heat dissipation from an interface between the seal seat and another sealing element. This heat is generated frictionally as a byproduct of the seal seat rotating against the seal element while axial force is imparted against the two, often by means of a spring element. In current seal assembly applications, increasing engine rotor speeds can cause increased thermal loading, non-uniform heat dissipation, and potentially harmful temperature gradients across the sealing interface.